Forced DNA Tests on Patients: That's Right, and You heard it Here First

Like a good joke, the conspiracy theories and rumours that get legs are the
ones with a grain of truth in them. Of course, if they actually are true, so
much the better. Here's a look a few of the gams that recently have been exposed.

FBI and Healthcare

If you'd like to experience the full savagery of the health-care system/big
pharma triangulated with a government agency and the insurance companies, try
having a chronic health condition. Some time back, I spent two years in pain
management, have friends who are still pain-management patients and so I know
of what I speak.

Pain management doctors and patients around the country are hounded by both
insurance companies and the DEA to severely ration medication. The insurance
companies restrict treatment because they don't want to pay for any chronic
condition since it affects their profits. The DEA is involved in pain management
because legal drugs encroach upon its territory and, therefore, its profits
as well.

Here's the shocker and if I didn't know both the doctor and patient I might
be sceptical, but I do and I'm not. In the last few weeks the FBI has
descended on doctors' offices in New York, and presumably elsewhere, to demand
that patients' mouths be swabbed for DNA samples . . . and whatever other information
can be gleaned from a mouth swab, but, really, it's for the DNA. If you think
this is one of the most egregious invasions of civil rights in the past few
weeks and wonder why no one stands up to them, it's because there are immediate
consequences. If the doctor does not comply, his or her license to prescribe
opiates is suspended; if the patient refuses to comply, he or she won't be
given medicine. So, a near 100% level of cooperation guaranteed.

The FBI's recent involvement in healthcare is in addition to the DEA's, which
for years has been raiding doctors' offices -- in front of patients and staff
-- to confiscate patient files and intimidate the sick and their caregivers.
They pick off the weak, chronically sick who are defenceless in every way.

Although seemingly minor by comparison, something similar happened to me at
the PA Department of Transportation the other day. I had to remove my glasses
for a drivers'-license-renewal picture because they might impair the retinal-recognition
feature built into the new card. Here's an unintended consequence for you:
I'm an organ donor. If my eyes end up in someone else's head does that mean
he or she will inherit my driving record and any other records linked to a
drivers' license? In the meantime, I'm curious to know where this is all going
and under what ruse we'll be micro chipped.

A Few More Atrocities of Recent Vintage

So many things to pick from . . . here are a few items that caught my retinal-mapped
eye:

Weaponized food -- a former lobbyist for Monsanto, chemical giant
and pioneers in genetically modified crops, has been put in charge of food
safety for the US. Robert Rodale must be turning over in his grave;

Potentially-dangerous swine flu injections -- vaccine makers are
exempt from lawsuits, why is that? Dentists in MA have been deputized to
administer flu shots. Why deputized? They already know how to give injections;

End-of-life, euthanasia counselling to be provided in the new universal
health plan -- hey, it's going to be free, don't knock it 'till you've
tried it. Of course, you can only try it once;

Post-industrial oddities -- a flotilla of plastic mini-particles
in the Pacific is entering the food chain;

Secretary General of the UN says we have three months to save the planet --
I'm kidding, he says we have four;

Geithner requests the statutory debt limit be raised over the current
$12.1 trillion limit -- he expects that limit could be breached in
mid-October. I'm sure we're good for it;

Want ads for domestic internment-camp workers -- with benefits for
part-time employees, I might add. More government job and evidence of your
stimulus dollars at work;

The Pentagon is moving to control state National Guard units --
but two governors, from Vermont and West Virginia, are opposing it. With
those electoral votes at risk, three and five respectively, the Pentagon
is sure to be thwarted;

Twenty-seven million Americans are taking anti-depressants -- with
more than 33 million on food stamps; and

The continued destruction of the now tired, poor, huddled masses of
the former middle class, as evidenced by all of the above and much more.

Marygwen has worked in banking and securities for 25+ years.
Her first job after the University of PA undergrad and Wharton grad was as
an investment banker at Paine Webber. After a stint in international commercial
banking, MG returned to Wall St. as a risk-arbitrage sales trader, initially
working for Merrill Lynch.

For the last ten years MG has been a supervisory analyst
and editor of institutional equity and economic research for several multi-national
financial firms including Banco Santander, Credit Lyonnais and Fox-Pitt, Kelton,
a subsidiary of SwissRe. She currently writes for BlownMortgage and contributes
to other top-rated blogs. Personal interests include historic restoration and
organic farming.